Some of the workers just don’t learn, do they? One was complaining that they used to earn $29 an hour with GM while currently earning $14 an hour with Fuyao. Maybe that’s why GM shut the factory in the first place?

My favourite was the woman fork truck driver; she was living in the basement of her sister’s house after losing just about everything when GM closed. She showed us her belongings, which consisted of a TV and a few clothes, she didn’t even own the bed she slept in! “I’m trying to work, I’m trying to get back to that middle-class lifestyle I once enjoyed,“ she said. Fuyao gave her a job driving forklift trucks, and after a while, she gets herself a nice apartment for $400 odd a month, and it looks like her life is improving but what does she do? Gets herself involved in trying to bring the Union into the factory which the Chinese don’t want so guess what happens? Yep, she loses her job. You would have thought she’s have kept her head down. I suppose she’s back in her sister’s basement now dreaming of how she can improve her situation? I did feel sorry for the guy who really tried to make friends with the Chinese and was sacked according to him because he wasn’t fast enough on the computer, but I suspect there was more to it than that?

I will say that the Chinese were pretty ruthless, a particularly chilling moment was when the chairman was looking at some newly installed robots and a manager said in Chinese: “We can cancel two workers here and four workers there.” as they passed by the poor American workers who were unaware they would be losing their jobs in a couple of weeks time.

I’m one of those people you meet in life that ‘things’ happen to. I suppose I should be grateful; I can at least say my life is never boring?

Every Saturday Charlie and I, Charlie is a dog, by the way, go to put fuel in my car and then we have a little ride round the town simply because Charlie loves going in the car. This morning I pulled up to the fuel pump, put my fuel in and headed inside to pay only to be presented with a bit of a queue. Something was wrong with the guy at the front’s card, and the assistant seemed to be getting flustered. Finally, I paid for my fuel and went to move my car to the air machine. As you can imagine, everyone was dying to get off the pumps having been held up inside the shop for so long and so I let a guy out in a van which was a fatal mistake! A woman in a VW Beatle nipped in front of the air machine “Excuse me” I said “I was just about to use that!” there then ensued some heated words from the battle-axe old mutton dressed up as lamb as she accused me of being parked at the pump which I wasn’t. “OK, don’t get your knickers in a twist. Carry on, I’ll wait.” I said as she flounced off relishing what she believed was a small victory. She then proceeded to study the machine, looked in her purse and guess what? She doesn’t have the right change for the damn thing! Charlie and I settled down for a brief nap given how long all this was taking and after what seemed like ages she finally pulled off. Clutching my 20p piece, I nipped round all four wheels and two minutes later we were on our way to that culinary mecca McDonalds.

My daughter had asked me to pick her up a Sausage and egg McMuffin. Now I should point out we always get Charlie a meat patty if we visit McD’s 99% of the time everything is fine. However, there are the odd occasions when it all goes horribly wrong.

Me: “Hi, can I have two sausage and egg McMuffins.”
Speaker: “Is that a meal?”
Me: “No, just two on their own, please.”
Speaker: “OK, anything else?”
Me: “Yes, I’d like a sausage patty on its own, please.”
Speaker: “You want a sausage and egg on its own no bun or cheese?”
Me: “No, I’d like the sausage meat on its own.”
Speaker: “So you want that on a tray?”
Me: “Umm? If you say so?”
Speaker: “OK drive round to the first window, please.”

1st Window
Assistant: “That’ll be £2.49, please.”
Me: “Aye? For all that food?”
Assistant: What did you order?”
Me: “Look, let me try and be as polite as possible. I want two sausage and egg McMuffins on their own, no drink, no hash brown OK? I then also want the sausage meat, look, for this dog, sat here, no buns, no eggs, no cheese just the meat.”

2nd Window
The assistant starts to hand me a knife and fork and what looked like two pots of salad dressing.

Me: “What’s this?”
Assistant: “Oh, what did you order?”
Me: “Sigh, two sausage and egg McMuffins and a meat patty on its own no egg, cheese or buns.”
After a couple of minutes of faffing around finally someone with half a brain cell shoved my order in what looked like a paper carrier bag and I left for home.

Daughter: “Where have you been? We were getting worried.”
Me: “Just take this lucky dip bag that McDonald’s has given me. Your guess is as good as mine as to what’s in it!”
Daughter: “Oh, dear.”
Me: “I’m not going out again!”